


Nothing Like Victory (But All The Same)

by finkpishnets



Category: America's Next Top Model RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one asks Allison what her reasons for coming back on the show are. (All Stars Cycle)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Like Victory (But All The Same)

**Author's Note:**

> Just, don’t ask, okay? I ship it. I shipped it the moment they both walked into the stupid All Star house, surrounded by people I couldn’t care less about, and proceeded to continue being adorable via their sheer existence. Also, because bloodbelieve and radioaches both said they’d read it, so, you know. It’s their faults?

Laura finds Allison the first night curled up on the floor by her bed wearing a hat with ears and drawing pictures that don’t mean much yet but are starting to form shape in Allison’s head all the same. She can hear the other girls (though, really, some of them had left that mantle long ago) laughing downstairs, too much alcohol and too few inhibitions writing stories for the camera, and she knows that she should join them – is pretty sure there was something about being less socially awkward in the contract, actually – but she can’t quite bring herself to move.

“What you doing?” Laura says, folding her legs under her as she slides to the floor, her shoulder pressed warmly against Allison’s, and her Southern drawl even more pronounced with the late hour. 

“Nothing,” Allison says, ducking her head and sliding the pages shut. “You?”

Laura laughs, head tipping back to reveal the long lines of her throat, and Allison can already see how she’d capture it on film, a still shot in motion, the shutters clicking with every blink of her eyes.

“I’m hidin’,” Laura whispers, conspiratorially. “They’re all so _loud_.”

Allison smiles, brushing her hair behind her ears and pushing her sketchpad under the bed, pressing her shoulder back against Laura’s so they’re sitting just a little closer.

“It’s weird to be back,” she says, and Laura nods, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully.

“It’s different now, though,” she says. “We’re different. We’re _All Stars_.”

Allison wants to tell her that means nothing at all, _less than nothing_ , but Laura’s smiling hopefully and she doesn’t want to do anything that’ll make her stop. Laura has the potential to be a friend or the potential to be something else, and Allison isn’t sure which it is yet but she feels pleasantly warm regardless. 

“We are,” she says eventually, and Laura’s laugh as she reaches to pull off Allison’s hat is worth the lie.

 

+

 

No one asks Allison what her reasons for coming back on the show are. She wouldn’t lie if they did, but it probably wouldn’t be the smartest idea to say “the money” when there are always cameras around, and besides, it’s supposed to be all about the _second chance_ or something. Sure, she enjoys modeling and it would be a cool career to have, but she doesn’t need it, isn’t driven to the point of insanity because there’s nothing else in the world she could possibly do like some of the other girls, and she hates to think that anything could ever push her there.

Honestly, she enjoys being behind the camera more these days, has to stop herself suggesting things to Jay – ways to make a shot better, more interesting, less cliché – because right now it’s all about getting a shot that’ll impress the panel of judges who change their criteria on a weekly basis. She’s been through this before, though; she can play the game as well as anyone.

Laura seems to be genuinely enjoying herself, and Allison hasn’t told her (won’t ever tell her) but when she’d watched her season, she’d rooted for Nicole, completely sure that Laura’s cheery disposition was nothing but a front for the cameras. 

She can’t believe she’d been so wrong.

It’s like Laura sees the world through rose-colored glasses, positivity pouring from her veins, and Allison doesn’t understand how she’s doesn’t exhaust herself when it’s all Allison can do not to let the biting irritation show on her face.

So, Allison’s in it for the money. Laura though-- Laura cares about it too much, and Allison hates that this competition is going to leave her battered and bruised and more cynical than she should ever have to be.

 

+

 

Angelea and Lisa are screaming at each other in the kitchen, and all Allison really wants to do is ask them to _please, shut the fuck up_ , but she refuses to get involved in the games they play for the cameras. They all have their roles to play, and hers is to keep out of the way while insults are flung back and forth at top volume, so she just climbs into bed and counts through all the reasons being here is remotely worth it.

Reason number two finds her ten minutes later, slipping under the duvet and pulling it high so it covers them both.

“This is so stupid,” Laura says, her hair damp from the shower and her eyes filled with something close to real worry. “They’re arguing over _nothing_.”

“I know,” Allison says, cataloguing the feel of Laura’s bare leg pressed up against hers, the jut of her hipbone where her tank top’s ridden up just slightly.

“You can stay here if you want,” she says after a while, when the shouting persists and Laura’s beginning to look steadily more anxious about facing the outside world. “It can be our own little fort where no one will ever find us.”

Laura’s hair falls across her face as she turns to look at her, smiling in that way that makes Allison’s toes curl, and it’s warm and soft and easy the way so few things in their lives are.

“Where it’s always summer and it never rains except on Sunday’s and everything smells like honeysuckle,” Laura says, eyelashes casting shadows across her cheeks, and it’s Allison’s turn to smile, folding closer into her.

“Exactly,” she says. “Where everyone speaks softly and laughs loudly and loves completely.”

“Oh,” Laura says, “ _oh_. I like that. That’s pretty.”

Allison sinks her teeth into her lip and doesn’t say “ _so are you_.”

 

+

 

Every week is steadily more ridiculous than the last, and by the time they make it to “Modelland” Allison’s not convinced that Tyra isn’t clinically insane. There’s something distinctly _creepy_ about the whole thing (and she knows creepy, she does, but _really_ ), and it’s a relief to spend any sort of time around Tyson Beckford who at least remembers that he’s acting. Tyra…well, Allison’s learnt not to question these things.

The two days of filming are grueling to an extent that they’ve not experiences so far, and she hardly sees the other girls when they’re not on camera at the same time. She does her best, reminds herself that a job is a job, but she can’t let go, not when there’s a part of her that can’t quite get over the feeling that Tyra would gladly keep them all here forever given the chance.

She does manage to see part of Laura’s shoot though, and it’s painful to stand on the sidelines and hear Tyra tell her to tone down the sexiness when all Allison wants to do is grab her hand and run, find somewhere away from cameras and directors and models so she can trace the curves of Laura’s skin with her lips, twist her fingers in the fabric of that stupid dress and lick the remains of whipped cream from her tongue. 

 

+

 

They’re the bottom two, and Allison saw it coming but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear her name instead of Laura’s.

(She doesn’t deserve it, not like this.)

 

+

 

“I just wanted to be taken seriously, as a model,” Laura says, eyes rimmed red with tears. Allison doesn’t tell her that it’s all a joke anyway, that they’re not going to be taken anymore seriously than the first time around, because it’s true but Laura still believes otherwise, even after everything, and Allison doesn’t want to make her cry anymore than she already is.

“I know,” she says instead, because she does, and because Laura needs to hear it.

Laura’s bags are packed at their feet, hardly anything to sum up all the time they’ve been here, and Allison tries to think of something to say, anything that’ll convey how much she wishes this wasn’t happening, how much she wishes she could just keep Laura under a blanket with her forever, nothing but easy smiles and lazy days.

“I hope you win,” Laura says, and her smile is watery but sincere.

“I’ll try,” Allison says, even though she knows Lisa’s already won, has seen it for weeks in the flow of the judges comments and Angelea’s tight jaw. She can lie to Laura one more time though.

A car horn blasts from outside – the driver here to take Laura to the airport and back to her small town life – and there’s too much still left to say but they’re out of time.

Allison pulls Laura close and realizes for the first time just how small she really is.

 

+

 

Lisa wins.

Allison goes back to New York.

Life continues.

 

+

 

She’s always been a little proud of how unshockable she is, too many years on the internet and an artists nature, but that’s before she opens the door to find Laura, duffle bag at her feet and cautiously hopeful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth like Allison’s going to do anything other than pull her inside and hug her tightly.

“I’m real sorry to just show up like this,” Laura says. “I was sort of hoping that maybe I could crash on your couch for a few days? I mean, just ‘til I sort out a place of my own. I’ve been signed by an agency, which is _awesome_ , except they’ve already scheduled go-sees and I really didn’t have time to think about an apartment…”

There are words caught on Allison’s tongue and thoughts tumbling through her brain too quickly for her to grasp, and all she can do is nod her head and keep her hand on Laura’s waist, an anchor to prove she’s really there.

“It’s so great to see you,” Laura says, smiling that bright, infectious smile that leaves Allison warm all over.

“You too,” she says. “It’s so great to see you too.”

“You really don’t mind?” Laura says, biting at her bottom lip, and Allison has to close her eyes for a moment.

“I really don’t mind,” she says when she opens them again, “but we should probably go into this with full disclosure.”

Laura frowns, and Allison doesn’t know if it’s because she doesn’t understand the word or because she doesn’t understand the context, but there’s only one way to make it clear.

She feels Laura’s gasp against her lips, still isn’t entirely sure this isn’t the _worst idea ever_ , but then Laura’s kissing her back, hand coming up to tangle in Allison’s hair, and it feels like everything Allison always knew it would. Laura’s warm underneath her hands, the curves of her hips _made_ for the press of Allison’s palms, and _oh_ , Allison wants to know how to make her moan and sigh and laugh -- how to make her breathless and how to make her scream.

“Oh,” Laura says when they finally pull apart. “Okay.”

“I just figured you should know what you’re letting yourself in for,” Allison says, then: “Oh, I meant, you know, my _feelings_ , not, uh. Not the rest of it.”

“Full disclosure,” Laura says, smiling, and Allison laughs.

“Exactly.”

“I think I can deal with that,” Laura says. “So, in full disclosure…”

This time the kiss lasts for hours, days, always.


End file.
